Copenhagen Climate Change Talks Fixed and Flawed

World’s leading climate change expert says summit talks so flawed that deal would be a disaster

Exclusive: World’s leading climate change expert says summit talks so flawed that deal would be a disaster

The scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week’s Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse.

In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world’s pre-eminent climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.

“I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it’s a disaster track,” said Hansen, who heads the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

“The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing then [people] will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means.” He was speaking as progress towards a deal in Copenhagen received a boost today, with India revealing a target to curb its carbon emissions. All four of the major emitters – the US, China, EU and India – have now tabled offers on emissions, although the equally vexed issue of funding for developing nations to deal with global warming remains deadlocked.

The Saudi connection again shows up, just like 9/11 where most of the terrorists were Saudi. Far worse than Afghanistan, Iran, or Iraq for treatment of women –where women are stoned to death for being raped, oil rich Saudi Arabia is again denying that Climate Change has any connection with manmade pollution (read oil). Not too strange, that this country is the US number one oil pusher and alongside China holds most of the US debt. In short, yes there is a connection between war, oil, carbon pollution, financial markets, arms, and global warming. Read on.

“E-mails hacked from a climate research institute suggest climate change does not have a human cause, according to Saudi Arabia’s lead climate negotiator. Mohammad Al-Sabban told BBC News that the issue will have a ‘huge impact’ on next week’s UN climate summit, with countries unwilling to cut emissions.

‘It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change,’ he told BBC News.

‘Climate is changing for thousands of years, but for natural and not human-induced reasons. So, whatever the international community does to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have no effect on the climate’s natural variability’

As the world’s leading oil producer, Saudi Arabia has previously fought attempts to agree curbs on emissions, and has also argued that it should receive financial compensation for ‘lost’ revenue, given that constraints on emissions might restrict oil sales.

To some long-time observers of the UN negotiations, Mr Al-Sabban’s comments indicate a continuation of this strategy.

‘It’s a transparent attempt to discredit the scientific evidence base and sow confusion ahead of the talks in Copenhagen; most of us have seen this all before,’ said Malini Mehra, founder and CEO of the Centre for Social Markets in India.

‘[The Saudis] appear to have regressed to the days when they were out-and-out climate deniers – not surprising for a fossil fuel dependent economy, but not far-sighted and certainly out of step with the rest of the developing world.’

A spokeswoman for the European Commission said that with or without the CRU hack, evidence for man-made climate change was ‘irrefutable’.

‘The world’s leading scientists overwhelmingly agree that what we’re experiencing is not down to natural variation in the climate over time, but due to human activities,’ she said.

‘If we do not act, climate change will continue apace and lead to major damaging impacts to the natural world and society.’

‘There is a consensus among the world’s scientists that climate change is real and there’s a need to confront it,’ said Michael Mann from Pennsylvania State University in the US, a leading palaeoclimatologist.

‘Those who are advocating inaction, that don’t want to see progress in Copenhagen, don’t have science on their side. Instead they’ve manufactured this false controversy to distract the public and to distract policymakers, to try to thwart progress in Copenhagen.’ “, the story concluded.

Root Causes and Solutions

It is well known that Exxon/Mobil is the largest profit making organization in the United States, while the oil companies, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the oil countries and industries are reaping in record profits. It is also well known that the financial markets, arms dealers, and militarists also are benefiting. That is their business — making money from exploitation of oil resources. However, since the American electoral and political system is dependent upon huge campaign donations from the power elite who do not want their boats shaken, positive change will not occur until sweeping electoral/campaign reform is demanded and enacted. A democracy must offer real choices, not the better of one evil. The American populace must demand it, or they risk alternatives other than the democratic process. Democracy is doubly at risk because of the resultant security state that has cropped up around the military industrial, financial state. A security (police) state is designed to crush dissent and free choice, while propping up totalitarian tyrants and/or their puppets. The challenge seems to be, whether Americans are capable of diagnosing the cause of their malaise — whether they are willing to take the responsibility which democracy demands, or simply collapse into slavery.

Without Americans aligning with the process that ensures their own liberation, the resulting slavery will continue to oppress them in turn the rest of the world. Environmental pollution and habitat destruction is a symptom of a culture gone amuck. When anyone or nation works against their own survival in terms of habitat – where they are actually polluting and poisoning themselves, community, their grandchildren, and planet, then the conclusion is that such a people are a threat to life itself.

In general, when any people acts against the well-being of all others, including their own, they are judged, criminally psychotic. Where is it that will explain this vast will for pollution, if not a polluted mind? Although business such as oil corporations, oil producing nations, the banking industry, the militarists, arms dealers, and security state apparatus will benefit economically, such catastrophic policies cannot be judged more than simple greed, but rather insane.

Climate activists have failed to understand that their struggle is not about showing sane people how to live a higher quality carbon free life, nor how to explain teh facts in an easily digestible way. No, rather climate activists have failed to understand that they must derail the misinformation campaign waged by big oil (and above), which has purposely reinforced their mental state of apathy, complacency, disconnection, and insanity, where the victim continues to perpetuate their own slavery.

Poisoning of the Body, the planet, and Global Warming as Symptom of a negative momentum

Environmentalism without heightened political consciousness is less than a meaningless waste of time, rather it is a distraction. It masquerades as compassion and empathy, but it is a foolish and idiotic compassion, which distracts well meaning people to delude themselves that they are making a positive change, while they are in fact, not.

The first error is the failure to recognize that pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, planetary destruction, deforestation; desertification; poisoning (of soil, water, air, and people), habitat destruction; overfishing, ocean acidification, general decimation of oceans, nuclear waste, depleted uranium, nuclear weaponry, war, lack of health care, deliberate mind pollution, and a lack of sustainable life policies are symptoms, not a root cause. Addressing the symptoms will do little. The planet will not change course by addressing each of these as separate issues; rather they must be addressed not only as a cultural, but more so as a spiritual root cause.

Endless growth economic growth is an unsustainable myth. Those who feign to “believe in it” are deluded by endless craving and greed. They been distracted from true happiness, seduced by cravings for a continuous onslaught of new gratifications, toys, and symbols. Extracting more from the earth or exploiting more people has definable limits. Such directions are not sustainable.

There are already more than enough sustainable solutions that have been offered by such organizations as The Bioneers, the Pachamama Alliance, etc. These do not need to be repeated once again. The real problem remains as how to derail the greed machine with its massive disinformation structure successfully and quickly. Without that, the majority of people’s minds will not awaken in time.

In these times, I urge all so called environmentalists, to reexamine the past functionality of their previous assumptions, actions, and organizational structure critically, weeding out any so called leaders who are bent on dysfunctional policies. I urge “environmentalists” to exorcise those with blinders, who have advocated only education, protests, and PR, while the plain evidence is that such is not working. It seems near to impossible to save insane people from themselves, but it is not impossible to save ourselves and our children. Insane people need therapy, not more drugs, electro-shocks, or surgical modification. What is their therapy?

What does not work should be easily identified by now. What is needed are people who can identify with life, not death, with clean air, food, and water, not poison. What is needed are people who are aligned with the evolutionary/creative momentum, not the program of dullness, sleep, and dissociation. People who have awakened, truly identify with life and all of creation. They identify with the natural community, children, grandchildren and the seventh generation. This is not an intellectual awakening, a logical deduction, nor is it based on greed, need, the ego, or comparative advantage. Rather it involves an ontological awakening – a living, walking, and breathing of Creative-Being and the healing expression of that momentum which is the natural and healthy expression of love.